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Sunday, January 11, 2009

Easy and Fast Apple Crisp!

A quick and delicious weeknight dessert!

My kids like dessert and snacks. Okay, they LOVE dessert and snacks and you know what? They get it a lot. I buy a very minimal amount of processed foods. I make our bread, all of our food, and most of their snacks.

There really are several reasons that I do this. The first being for our health. When I make them the food they are eating I know exactly what is going into their little bodies! I know they aren't getting High Fructose Corn Syrup, Red Dye #40, any of the other dyes and no artificial sugars! Are they always getting "healthy" desserts and snacks. Hell no! They have cookies, cakes, quick breads, turnovers, and whatever else I feel like making them during the day! These are some lucky kids huh?

The other night I was going out for dinner with a friend of mine and I made sure that the family had leftover pizza for dinner but I also quickly threw together a really quick apple crisp with some poorly neglected apples. I was inspired to do this after reading Kelly's post here about a very elegant Maple Oat Apple Crisp that she had made. This one needed to be quick though. So this is what I threw together...

Easy and Fast Apple Crisp (I have no idea where this is from I have used it FOREVER)

Place fruit in a 8 X 1 1/2 " round baking dish (or any other small dish that you choose), stir in the 2 - Tbsp brown sugar.

For the topping, in a mixing bowl combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. Cut in butter until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. I usually use my fingers to do this. It seems to mix it faster.

Sprinkle topping over the fruit.

Bake in a 375° oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until fruit is tender and topping is a nice golden color.

This can be served warm with ice cream.

This recipe is incredibly versatile but the basic one I follow. Here are some changes I make

Mmmm...we were raised on Apple Crisp. I still make it when I am not up to baking a pie. My recipe doesn't have oats in it, and in our family we always "doubled" the crisp (more butter and sugar that way, lol)!

I might call it apple crumble instead of apple crisp but we're talking about the same thing :) I always use some oats as part of the topping and usually cinnamon but it's endlessly versatile and fabulously simple. Yum, yum, yum!

I made this for my book club last night. I needed something fast and easy - this fit the bill (especially since I had all the ingredientson hand), even some organic apples that needed to get used. I got several requests for the recipe. Definitely a keeper!Thanks

I love to add different fruits to my apple crisp to give it a unique flavor. Try adding a peach or a handful of cranberries to the mix. I also will add some nuts (walnuts or pecans) to the topping. This is a great recipe to use as a base, and then add your own embellishments that will give it your own personal flair.

If you find yourself in need of nice bowls to serve your apple crisp in, you might want to visit Splendids.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, when I am using just apples, I always use a couple of different varieties, one sweeter variety that cooks down more (usually a McIntosh) mixed with a more tart, firmer apple (like a Granny Smith).